NursingLink

Sounds like the County Home is trying to save their behinds and not the nurse. Backstabbing if I ever saw it!! Low down dirty dogs. Call it what it is.

She should sue the facility that suspended her. I would like to know where that regulation exists. It sounds made up to me. Any health care worker knows that if there is a potentially harmful client and you or another is in immediate danger, get help now. She could have been killed herself if she would have tried to force a dangerous man into her car. I suggest she get a lawyer and take those uncaring, non-supporting nurse mangers to court. They are a disgrace to nursing and nurses like them are what bring our nursing industry down. Get rid of them.

This case is just one among many why many nurses are getting out of the profession. The caring aspect is gradually going through the door while policies take over. I see that Nursing will continue to be in great demand for a very long time.One member summed it up just right You damned if you do and damned if you don't.

This will probably make some people mad but a couple of things bother me about this situation. First, why wasn't the pt. noted to not be on the premises? Which brings up several other obvious points such as with his hx he should have had an alarm on him somewhere, how did he get out of the facility without being noticed, who doesn't have a cell phone, most policies state if a pt. leaves the premises without approval or supervision (having been signed out) then the Police are to be involved. I do applaud the fact that she was willing to go above and beyond the call of duty but our personal safety whether as a nurse or as a human being should be paramount. Rules and Regulations are there to protect everyone involved and should be followed. I suspect that the facility in question may be concerned about the State investigating them and possibly being reprimanded had they not taken the steps that they had. It is true 'No good deed goes unpunished' most of the time but there are exceptions. In the above article it states that the pt had a personal beef with this same nurse who reported his agitation and combativeness to the oncoming shift. If it had been me and I was in the same situation I would have probably stopped and called the facility, notify the Administrator and DON, then called the police to escort this gentleman back to his abode. The fact that she and the security guard took matters into their own hands set the stage for a potential lawsuit had something gone wrong. I do not want to discourage anyone from going above and beyond the call of duty but common sense has to prevail and policies have to be followed. As a nurse of 15+ years I know we can't save everyone although we all would like to but as an intelligent person I know I can't help someone if I place myself in the position that risks my well being. Let the knives start flying. . . .

After 30 plus years of nursing, I have come to the conclusion that upper management had a very different perspective which has often baffled me. I say this even with years of middle management experience including being a Director of Nursing several times. I have acquired a much clearer picture in the past 3 years after transferring as a nurse manager to a small sister rural hospital. For the past year, I have worked on the floor with my nurses covering vacant positions. My position " Damned if you do or Damned if you don't " consistently comes up.
I realize there was more to this situation than we know, however I believe situations such as with nurse in this story there is always an opportunity for someone to have their own ideas/agenda where the person did not perform as they think the employee should. The nurse used her critical thinking and made a decision to act as she did. The outcome met the goal ," Get the patient back to the facility safely". She should be commended for her actions. If she had placed the patient in her car she probably would be hearing she had violated a policy regarding the liability of using her personal vehicle to transport a patient. Had she had an accident on the way back ,I do not believe the facility administration would be backing her for the decison to transport the patient herself. In addition, more than likely, her auto insurance company would clearly and quickly point out use of her private auto was not covered for the facility business especially since she was off the clock and if a company policy prohibited use of private vehicles for patient transport.

It would be interesting to know who else was involved in reviewing the incident and determining the employee desciplinary action . Usually there are other administrative or human resource personnel involved.

That is outrageous but it happens all the time. People are too sheeple in their behavior. I was a nurse for 20 years and I was good but because of similar circumstances I ended up working in a medical non-nursing field. That is a shame. And the nurse in this article, age 56, will probably do exactly that. What has happened to professional courtesy and respect? I think it has been replaced by the almighty dollar and the short lived power it brings to some people.
vinnigirl

Sometimes management are so involved in there own drama's, they loose sight of the big picture and try to make a big deal out of somethings that should be overlooked. Was that situation covered specifically in a policy or was it the way that manager understood a simple policy. How dare that management team to expect that nurse to endanger her own life. Come on?! Where are our priorities? I wonder what kind of stuff is overlooked at that place.

If she would have stopped and try to get the patient in the car by herself she could possibly get hurt or even killed then the patient would have an get away car and probably go and try to kill his wife again or someone else. Diasparra did the right thing. She is an hero in this situation.The DON needs to lose her job because she seems to care little about anything or anyone and the county home spokesman Tom Quatroche said that there is more to this story but that he could not provide further details on a personnel matter well this sound like bull to me, this is what he get paid to say , try to make the company faultless when in fact an injustice was done to an very good nurse.